Shoe horns have been available for very many years to help people insert their feet into shoes, especially tight shoes or shoes which have not been broken in. Typical shoe horns are about 3 or 4 inches long and about 11/2 inches wide with the 11/2 inches dimension having a curved shape to match the horizontal curvature of a persons heel. Typically a person using a prior art shoe horn will positioned the shoe horn inside the shoe at the back of the shoe and insert his foot into the shoe while holding the top edge of the shoe horn with one of his hands. The shoe horn helps guide the foot into the shoe. There are a very large number of people who for various reasons cannot reach their feet with either hand. Many people including many people with arthritic conditions can reach their feet but experience pain in doing so. These people typically get help putting on their shoes or wear slipper type shoes that they can merely slide their feet into without the need of using their hands. Some people are unable to tie their shoe laces or experience pain in doing so. Devices have been proposed to permit handicapped to put on their own shoes and socks. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,355,745 issued to Nelson which proposed a shoe horn with a long handle and U.S. Pat. No. 3,604,604 issued to Ahn to enable a handicapped person to put on his own socks.
An old but relevant invention was U.S. Pat. No. 19,284 issued to Allender which disclosed a device for holding shoes for the feet while the foot was inserted. The problem with Allender's device was that it had small intricate parts such as a thumb screw and a spring catch. These small parts could not be manipulated by a persons with certain serious hand handicaps: i.e., severe arthritis or amputated fingers. Allender and the other prior art shoe horn devices work well only if the shoe is loose or the laces are untied when the shoe is put on and the user is not handicapped.
What is needed is a better shoe horn apparatus that can be handled at a substantial distance from the feet and which will work with many types of shoes including pretied shoes with laces.